As pay telephone stations become more complex, more and more functionality and circuitry is included within the pay telephone housing. Because of this trend, pay telephone stations are increasingly more expensive and more difficult to maintain and install. For example, installation personnel are usually not skilled in complex electronic systems but rather are skilled in carpentry and the mechanical construction of the enclosure for the pay telephone station. As such, the installation personnel are more apt to unknowingly damage the complex electronics within the pay telephone housing. For example, pinched wires and inadvertently disconnected components are common problems resulting from improper installation of pay telephone stations.
In terms of reliability, pay telephones must survive the natural elements as well as prevent tampering with the internal electronics of the pay telephone by precluding unauthorized entry into the internal functionality of the station. As such, the pay telephone housing must be of rugged construction in order to survive both long-term exposure to the elements and continued use and to deter unauthorized activity.
Similarly, pay telephone stations must be constructed to allow for ease of service of the station. The same problems associated with the installation of the unit are also equally likely to occur during the servicing of the unit. In addition, as pay telephones become more and more complex, it is increasingly difficult to adapt a pay telephone unit in the field for new functionality. The various functions that a modern telephone station must support, such as coin calls, credit card calls, and complex graphical user prompts through liquid crystal displays or other sorts of displays make the task of adapting such machines after they have been installed in the field very difficult.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for a pay telephone architecture which allows for reliability, ease of installation and serviceability and ease of adaption through the addition of new functionality.